How can PHP developers ensure accurate sorting of data by date when converting date formats to timestamps in MySQL queries?

When converting date formats to timestamps in MySQL queries, PHP developers can ensure accurate sorting of data by using the `strtotime()` function to convert the date string to a timestamp before inserting it into the database. This will standardize the date format and ensure consistent sorting when querying the data.

// Example code snippet
$date = "2022-01-15";
$timestamp = strtotime($date);
$query = "INSERT INTO table_name (date_column) VALUES ('$timestamp')";
// Execute the query